Adverbs of frequency | English lesson

hello everyone this is Andrew at Crown Academy of English today we are doing a grammar lesson all about adverbs of frequency so let's start so first of all what are adverbs well the definition of an adverb is an adverb is a word that modifies a verb so the adverb gives more information about the verb so the verb describes an action and the adverb gives us more information about that action example so without an adverb a very simple sentence Jane is walking and with an adverb Jane is walking quickly quickly so quickly is the adverb and it gives us more information about the action so quickly modifies the verb walk so this is the action walking and quickly tells us how Jane is walking gives us more information more details ok so that is the definition of just a normal adverb so what are adverbs of frequency let's look at an example so Marc plays tennis so we are describing a habit that is why we are using the present simple mark sometimes plays tennis okay so the word sometimes is an adverb of frequency it is an adverb of frequency and an adverb of frequency is an adverb of time so it gives us more information about the time and it describes in fact the frequency of an action okay so gives us more information about the frequency and in this lesson you will learn first of all the adverbs of indefinite frequency and then the adverbs of definite frequency okay so there are two types of adverb of frequency and you will learn both types and you will also learn the position of adverbs of frequency in the sentence and at the end there are some exercises okay so let's start with the adverbs of indefinite frequency our definition adverbs of indefinite frequency give a general indication of the frequency okay it is not an exact indication it is not a specific indication of the frequency so let's look at some examples if the level of frequency is maximum 100% of the time then we say always example I always play football so a hundred percent of the time if you are playing football 100 percent of the time you say I always play football and the minimum frequency so if you play football zero percent of the time then we use the adverb never I never play football so these are the two extremes and in between never and always there are several other adverbs example so slightly more than never we say rarely or hardly ever I hardly ever play football then slightly more frequent we say seldom I seldom play football then we say occasionally I occasionally play football then in the middle at 50 percent approximately 50 percent we say sometimes I sometimes play football so sometimes is neutral it is in the middle now we have often I often play football then we have usually I usually play football and then we have frequently I frequently play football okay so the numbers here the percentages they are not exact okay do not worry about the exact percentages they are not important but what is important is the relative order for example it is important to know that seldom is less frequent than often and often is less frequent than frequently so the relative order is important now these last three lines so seldom rarely hardly ever and never they all have a negative meaning a negative meaning okay so they have a negative frequency so for example if somebody asks you do you often play football do you often play football then if the answer is no you would say no I seldom play football or no I rarely play football so these three lines they are negative in meaning and all the others have a positive meaning okay that's important okay so these are the indefinite the adverbs of indefinite frequency let's look at the position of the adverbs of indefinite frequency here is the list well all of the adverbs of indefinite frequency can go before the main verb so all of them so it is a general rule go before the main verb for example I always play football play is the main verb and we put the adverb before it Jane seldom drinks alcohol here is the verb here is the adverb before it now this one is interesting I have never met the Queen okay so if you notice here there are in fact two verbs we have the verb have and we have the verb net which is the past form of meet but half is an auxiliary verb it is not the main verb this is the main verb net so the adverb goes before the main verb only before the main verb not before the auxiliary verb okay so this is the general rule for all of these adverbs of indefinite frequency this is the best position to put them in now there is an exception if the main verb is the verb to be then the adverb of indefinite frequency is after the verb to be example mark is often late ok mark is often late another example would be Jane is never late so the verb to be here and here is the adverb so this is an exception and we also have some optional rules okay so there are some optional rules if we want to change the position so these adverbs occasionally sometimes often frequently and usually we can optionally put them at the beginning or end of a sentence and it's only these adverbs example sometimes I play football we can see here we have put sometimes at the beginning of the sentence we can also say mark watches television occasionally we can see here we have decided to put occasionally at the end of the sentence and rarely can go at the end of a sentence and we often put this with the word very for example we go to London very rarely ok so this is the general rule this is an exception for the verb to be and if you want to change the position of the adverb then you can use these optional rules here okay now let's look at adverbs of definite frequency so the definition is that adverbs of definite frequency describe the exact frequency of an action so they are very specific example I play football three times a month so you can see it is very very specific we have the exact frequency I go to school five times a week so the form is a number then the word times then the word are and then a period of time for example three times a month there are two exceptions if the number of times is 1 then we say once we do not say one time example I wash my car once a month I wash my car once a month we do not say one time a month and if the number of times is 2 then we say twice we do not say 2 times example I go to London twice a year twice a year we do not say two times a year okay so this is a very very useful structure so more examples Jane calls her mother every day mark goes to the beach every weekend so here the form is the word every and then a period of time and very important the period of time is in the singular form so day is singular weekend is singular and here is a list of periods of time these are the most common ones day week month year morning evening night weekend fortnight fortnight means two weeks so for example we could say Jane calls her mother every morning every morning in the singular another example Andrew watches football on Saturdays my parents go to the cinema on Wednesdays to hear the forum is the word on and then the day of the week and very important the day of the week is in the plural form plural on Saturdays on Wednesdays so this means Andrew watches football every Saturday my parents go to the cinema every Wednesday okay so it's very useful expression and we only use this four days of the week okay and if you look at the position the position of these is it's better at the end every day is at the end of the sentence and here as well and here it is the same so which is better to say these at the end of the sentence an alternative would be right at the beginning of the sentence so for example you could say on Saturdays Andrew watches football but it's slightly better at the end okay and some more examples we have adverbs like hourly daily weekly monthly yearly and again they mean every hour every day every week every month every year mark calls his wife daily cause his wife daily so this means that mark calls his wife every day this is the adverb and again this goes at the end of the sentence my boss pays me monthly monthly so the position these adverbs go at the end of the sentence so after the verb and after the object if there is an object so both of these verbs they have an object his wife so daily is after the object and here the object is me my boss is paying me and so the adverb goes after the object so how do we ask a question about frequency well we use the structure how often followed by the question form of the verb example how often do you play football how often do you play football so we have how often and then this is simply the question form of the verb and here it is the present simple tense but it could be another tense if we wanted here is another example how often does Mark wash his car so again this is the present simple but this time it is the third-person singular and the question form in the third singular is does mark wash okay now here is one in the past tense in the past simple when you lived in London how often did it rain so you have how often then we have the question form of the past simple did it rain how often will you write a name this time we are in the future simple tense how often followed by the question form of the future simple will you write okay so this is how you ask somebody about the frequency of an action exercise so these questions they are open questions so I would like you to write answers to these questions using every followed by the time period so question one how often do you wash your hair so you will give your answer and I will give you a few seconds so I will give you my answers these are the answers for my situation well I wash my hair every day every day how often does your best friend call you while my answer is my best friend calls me every week every week notice how week is in the singular and day is in a singular and they are at the end of the sentence right answers to these questions using the following form so we saw this form earlier number times our period of time how often do you go to the cinema how often do you go to the cinema well here is my answer I go to the cinema once a month once a month so remember if the number is one we do not say one time we say once once a month how often do you brush your teeth well my answer is I brush my teeth three times a day three times a day exercise to complete the sentences using an adverb of indefinite frequency so the sentence is well David Beckham frequently travels to America do you frequently travel to America also and I want you to complete the sentence with an adverb of indefinite frequency well the answer is no I rarely travel to America rarely so remember that because the sentence starts with no then we must use one of the negative adverbs of indefinite frequency remember we saw those earlier they are seldom rarely hardly ever or never so any of these are correct I chose rarely but seldom is correct hardly ever is correct and never is correct question two so I want you to choose an appropriate adverb of indefinite frequency what the answer is what Lionel Messi frequently scores goals frequently okay so since he is a very very good footballer then we choose either frequently usually or often question three well this answer it depends it's it's for you to decide I chose often my English teacher often gives me homework for this question you could choose any of these adverbs all of them would be correct it depends on your English teacher okay so that is the end of the lesson if you want to subscribe to my channel and you can click here on the screen here is my Twitter account and here are three other videos which you might be interested in watching so to start one of the videos simply click on the screen okay my name is Andrew at Crown Academy of English thank you for watching and I will see you very soon bye bye

Channel: Crown Academy of English

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Keywords: English adverbs, adverbs of frequency, cours d'anglais, adverbes de fréquence en anglais, adverbs, What is an adverb in English, learn english grammar, english grammar lesson, english grammar exercises, english grammar, English lessons, Crown Academy of English, ESL, English language

Id: 6Z5o43Qyqho

Length: 28min 49sec (1729 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 12 2015